Second Chance
by Pimp Daddy Payne
Summary: <html><head></head>What would you do if you could go back in time and redo high school all over again?</html>
1. Chapter 1

I've always been told that I'm a weird shit magnet. Really, it's true. I've seen ghosts,UFOs, and I swear on the broken piece of scrap that is my old alto, I've seen Bigfoot. (Actually, I see Bigfoot every time my family gets together; my uncle happens to be a very large and hairy guy.)

Anyways, that's beside the point. You see, kids, I'm 20 years old, and I'm dead. Well, actually, I don't exist. Well, I do. It's complicated. I've been somehow sent back in time. Lame sounding bullshit, isn't it? Well, how do you think I feel? I'm a grown man in the body of a 14 year old. That means I get to go through puberty. Again. Think I enjoy being Mr. Squeaky again? Hell no.

Back to the story. Sorry, I tend to go on rants at times.

I found myself sitting there in my bed at my mom's house, a place I hadn't really seen in years (with the exceptions of winter and summer break at the university). I know, weird, right? Most times, when someone gets stuck in a time loop or gets sent back in time into their old body, they tend to wake up into it.

I was practicing simple scales on a broken old alto that would barely play.

I'd have much rather woken up to being a kid again, but I guess to quote Mick jagger, "You can't always get what you want." I don't really know why this happened to me.

Maybe I got lucky. Maybe the last 6 years of my life were some lucid daydream that I got lost in. Maybe a higher power sent me back to fix the terrible things that have happened to me and to the people I grew up with.

All I know, is that I got a second chance.


	2. Freshman Band Camp, Pt 1

Hey there. How are you? Glad to see you. You know why? Because that means one of three things. A: You're interested in my story because you believe me and are interested in finding out how I ended up in the situation I'm in so maybe you can one day avoid it. B: You don't believe me and just think that this is some story to entertain you. Well, I'm not going to cry about it. I live to entertain, kids, so read on. Just try to keep me in mind if this ever does happen to you, cuz I'll be in the background, laughing my ass off and saying "I told you so." Or my personal favorite: Option C! That means you're reading this and happen to be in the same boat as me and are looking for a way out! I don't really know the answer to that, but hell, we get to be comrades in arms in the fight to both retain our sanity and return to our own time! Granted, there might be other reasons why you're reading this, but I find my three options work best and didn't want to spend a long time coming up with reasons for you reading this. After all, you are you, and I am myself.

Though there are some perks to being in your own past. We'll cover that later.

Anyways, had you read the last chapter and decided to keep on, I guess it's time to introduce myself. My name is Christopher John Blackwood. I'm the whitest guy you know. I'm twenty… or fourteen, depending how you look at it. I've been alive twenty years, at least, but only fourteen have happened. Well, the other twenty happened too, but… damn it, time travel is confusing when you're not some astrophysicist with twenty or thirty degrees in majors related to this crap.

Granted, being as how I'm the only person I know of that has successfully traveled time, I guess it's confusing to them too.

Where was I again? Oh yeah. I'm the whitest guy this side of a sparkly vampire, I'm an average guy with average grades. Well, I was, when I was twenty and living at college. Life was getting better for me than it had usually been. I was away from high school drama and I kept a close knit circle of friends at college so nothing really bothered me. I hadn't been able to go to boot camp and enlist like I had wanted too due to a drunk driver screwing my life up, but I did however get a rather hefty paycheck from the lawsuit I subsequently filed. So, when I turned nineteen and started getting checks from the douchebag that screwed my life up, I went to the nearby university looking to get a degree in education so I could go teach second grade or something.

What?

Just because I come across as a sarcastic asshole (which if I haven't struck you as one yet, I will eventually) doesn't mean I'm always one. You're old enough to read this kind of crap, after all. But, if you're not, then your mommy shouldn't let you on the interwebs without proper supervision. It could be bad for your emotional and mental health and development.

See? Told ya I cared about the kids.

So, dear readers, back to my introduction. Most people call me Chris, some call me CJ, and the people that are in ROTC will call me Blackwood because that's apparently how things roll in ROTC. Well, I already knew that, but I shouldn't because I'm supposed to be a newbie freshman.

Boy, are they in for a shocker?

But ROTC and the rest of high school is a far ways away from now. You see, I'm about to have to go through something that scares me as much as the fact that I am going through puberty again.

I have to be a freshman at band camp. Again.

Since I'm now in the past, I believe I shall go and coin a term from the future where you and I are from.

FML.

Seriously, I must have pissed off somebody up in Heaven or something. I already went through that crap once. I mean, I know most kids get it bad, but back when I was this age last time, I had a bit of a reputation as an obnoxious loser.

Granted, I left with a reputation of pure awesome. To quote Charlie Sheen, "Winning, duh."

Of course, sparkly vampires haven't really started being a craze yet and Charlie Sheen hasn't lost his sanity, so, really, reader, you're the only person or persons I can share these future jokes and comparisons with. No one in 2005 will get this comic gold oozing out my mouth.

Off topic. So, as far as a physical description goes, I have dark brown hair that borders on black, I'm porcelain pale (well, I am now that I'm a kid again), and I'm heavyset. Now that I'm fourteen, I'm all flabby and stuff again, but when I was all grown up, I was just a very broad shouldered big guy. I had to lose a good bit of weight and get toned up before they would let me go to boot camp, and even though I couldn't go, the rehab from my wreck and then me just keeping myself healthy made me pretty fit for a big guy. I grew up to be an even six feet tall and about two hundred pounds if that tells ya anything. That's the first thing that's getting fixed now that I have this second chance. Well, not the first; it'll take a while to really get myself in shape, but I worked my ass off to get there last time and I'll be damned if I don't go to the military this time, should I get stuck in the past.

Actually, that kind of makes me want to be stuck in the past.

But then, I have to go through all the crap I did in high school again.

Never mind.

Anyway, I'm assuming that you just looked at that and went "Too Long Don't Read" on me. In which case, I'll summarize:

I am awesome, dear reader. Plain and simple.

But you're not really here to talk to me, are you? No, you're here because you want to read about me suffering through band camp and high school, don't you? Twisted jerk face.

So there I was.

I looked down the side walk that entered the music hall where the band and chorus kept all of their equipment and the classrooms. It looked longer than I remembered it being my first run through. My mom had dropped me off; and it was still rather early. The schedule said that we didn't have to show up until 8, and it was seven. The band director and the assistant band director were there (they had joked with me later in life that they spent more time around me than they did their own wives and children, which was total BS because the director's daughter was in the class of '09 like me and the assistant's stepdaughter was in her first year of band herself) and so were a couple of the people that they hired from my future university to help teach all the different sections.

Though I didn't know that the first time and just thought some of them were just really old looking seniors or something. And come to think of it, I'd be about that way by the time I graduated myself. It was useful for getting into places without getting carded, terrible on movie dates where I should have gotten a student discount. I ignored them like I had done my first go round. I remembered this day rather clearly and had come prepared.

On my back was a bookbag that looked rather plain and unassuming. But, it carried in it, two extra pairs of socks, a spare pair of tennis shoes, and an old toothbrush with a bottle of peroxide and a bowl. I did get a few approving looks; the adults chilling out in the rather narrow corridor seemed to be amused that I had come apparently prepared, even if they couldn't see in my pack.

Or maybe they could. I mean, I am a time traveller, maybe they had xray vision. My mind's open to the possibilities.

The assistant band director, Mr. Fred Mitchell, greeted me. He was a funny guy and I'd eventually take after him when it came to my musical talents and choices, but right now, I was the obnoxious hyper kid that he had recently stuck on a barely functioning baritone saxophone. Fred didn't like me when I was younger. God, I was going to go crazy if I didn't fix my reputation real quick and in a hurry. Most of my reputation was based off the fact that I was really loud, really hyper and socially awkward, so, I fixed one part right away.

"Hey Mr. Mitchell, how was your summer?" It wasn't a whisper, but it was a damn sight quieter and much calmer than what he expected. The bearded man nodded and said it was pretty good. He wasn't much one for small talk, so I let it go and politely reminded him that I needed to get a bari now that I was here at the high school. He looked mildly surprised; I guess he didn't think I was going to stick with it. I wasn't very good in the eighth grade; I played much too softly and without a shred of confidence. He had been sitting with a trumpet in his hands, fiddling with the valves. I guess he'd been trying to get one unstuck.

I had to hold back a grin. I hadn't seen Fred since my junior year of high school. A lot of bad stuff had happened in that year, and he had been more or less fired afterwards, leading to the school getting a new director and staff for the band program.

I hadn't cared much for the new guys my senior year. It hadn't really crossed my mind why I went back in time; after all, it had just happened with no warning. A small part of me wondered if I was supposed to fix something. Maybe that was it?

I sure didn't know, so I kept my mouth shut. I didn't know how long this would last or if this was all some freaky long ass dream any way. Maybe this was some fantasy that was playing out in my head while I was really in some kind of vegetative state.

I shrugged and went behind him to the little room that the band affectionately referred to as "The Cage".

The cage was used by the high school to store janitor equipment and gym equipment on one side, and the really big band stuff like the tubas and other really large and awkward instruments on the other. It was a fairly large but dark and dank room that reminded me personally of some kind of dungeon. The reason it was called The Cage was because of a chain link fence that separated the band equipment from the other stuff. Fred did a quick run through of the three bari saxes that were sitting there, giving me the only one in playable shape like what had happened last time.

I shuddered, because it was for this saxophone that I had brought the peroxide and the toothbrush.

You see, this one part of my life, where I had to go and spend an hour with soap and hot water trying to scrub a mouthpiece that I had no idea who had last used it had stayed with me for years. See, it wasn't the fact that I was whining about sharing mouthpieces with someone, but because the last someone who used it apparently never cleaned it either. There was a slimy looking green thing inside the two mouthpieces I had found. One was shorter and rounder, and that had been the one I had used my entire high school career before stealing it and taking it home with me my last day as a senior. I was thankful to see it again but damn, I had not been looking forward to cleaning it. The other one was one I had never gotten the chance to use. I was told it was more for jazz music and I had never touched it afterwards, but given that our choice in pep music was very funk based and would mostly remain so, I saw no problems adding in a bit variation on the sound I'd produce with it. Worst case scenario, they'd tell me not to use it. Next step was to get a decent neck strap; I remembered that the one I had now wouldn't last me for another two weeks when we finally got the instruments out to practice marching and playing.

I thanked Fred and went into the main hallway that connected the cage to the music wing. This part of the high school was very circular, I remembered, as the main hallway was the perimeter around the gym. I went down the circle a little bit, placing the massive case down and opening it with a quickness that I had mastered over my years of playing the old beat up horn that I had been given.

She wasn't my first, or my last, but I had loved the old thing. I had forgotten how much so until I had the case opened to display her in all of her tarnished glory. I actually had to wipe a tear out of my eye. Though that could have been the old musky, musty, moldy smell that began to assail my nostrils.

I gingerly picked her up, and looked at the bell of the horn. A smile bubbled up on my lips; the YAM in Yamaha were the only letters visible, and I knew she was mine again.

"Long time no see, Yam…"

My words were a quiet whisper, as if to the ear of a lover. I put the saxophone down and looked in the storage compartment where the mouthpieces were, and picked them up with a lot less tender affection. I'd love them after they were disinfected.

Instead of an hour and only one mouthpiece, my preparedness had gotten me two mouthpieces in less than a half hour. The fungus-slime came off a lot easier after soaking them both in peroxide than it did with just soap and water. I held the mouthpieces away from my face, looking to see if they were clean enough. They weren't perfect, but they were sterilized like hell. Seriously, I watched the peroxide bubble for ten minutes on each piece. Whatever that crap was, it was now less existent than the last six years of the life I had now yet to live. Or something like that. I still haven't figured it out.

As I made my way out, I noticed that several of my fellow freshmen were finally starting to show. Most of them girls; I was the only freshman guy in the woodwind half of the band. I began to like it that way as I grew, but I remembered that the last time I was 14, I had hated the lack of testosterone in my friends list.

It was very disconcerting to me. There were a lot of people that I hadn't seen since I had graduated. They kept coming in; most of them waving to me or smiling but few saying more than a good morning. I liked it that way. I was high pitched still, and still growing into my adult voice so I didn't want to really talk.

The most awkward part for me was watching three people who were some of the closest friends to each other before things began to fall apart in the next few years. Especially considering that one of them ended up pregnant by senior year. It was odd seeing them as kids again, and it was then I realized that I really was alone right now.

Now, dear reader, I have to tell you: I am not an emo by any stretch of the word. I'm a pretty happy guy that only occasionally wallows in self -misery and pity on a particularly bad day on a particularly bad week.

Well, dammit, this was one of those days, and this was one of those weeks. I remembered last Sunday going to sleep as a college student, and readjusting to my old life was taking its time.

See, all of my classmates, the teachers, everyone: they knew me, but they knew me as a crazy kid with a loud mouth and a lame sense of humor. The thing was, that kid was gone. I'd grown up. I was a grown up, I was an adult, and damn it all, I had done this crap before. I was a veteran, and like a veteran, I had my own mental scars from the things that I had been through that had shaped me into who I had become. But, none of that had happened yet to any of them. None of them knew me now.

Well, shit.

I watched them file in, one by one. I waited with my saxophone patiently. I had already put Yam together, quietly blowing air through the horn without making a sound. I wanted her warm and ready, and I also had to get used to the taste the peroxide left. I had bought a plastic reed, something I hadn't had last time until I was a junior. It had saved me loads of money when I had gotten it; there were several people that would get their kicks off of breaking my reed at football games while I was off getting concessions, and my own clumsiness hadn't helped matters either. I went through wooden reeds like a hot knife through softened butter.

Yam was the only one who knew me, it felt like. Maybe Yam had traveled back with me? I doubted it. Yam was my horn; no one and I mean no one could make her play like I could. The bari sax was old and battered but I learned how to play her anyway. And now she was in my hands again. I hadn't played a saxophone in two years before I traveled in time, but even still, I could feel all the practice I had put in back in my first run. I wasn't on par with what I had been as a senior, but I remembered my skills as a freshman well and sadly, the word skill was not the right one.

"I made a 37 on my final exam, I think…" I muttered, no one paying any attention to me. Finally, Fred motioned for everyone to go inside the band room. It was only freshmen, but we were all there; woodwinds, brass, percussion. I ignored Fred as he made a speech about what it meant now that we were high school band members, what was expected, and all the rules and such. I had heard it before, and I wasn't a rule breaking type anyway. See, I have this thing I like to call common sense that helps me make wise decisions.

He explained how marching was different that anything we had done before. I almost laughed. Not only had I done marching band, I took part in every parade, and had spent all four years of high school in ROTC marching. Marching was the stuff I was good at. Hell, I had faint memories of actually marching in my sleep.

Mr. Mitchell stopped finally and then motioned. My eyes grew wide as I realized who it was. Christian Griffen, aka the band director. To everyone else in the room, he was a favored teacher that they didn't really know but they seemed glad to see him. After all, since he was liked, they were glad to see him after the summer break.

For me, it was different.

For me, Christian Griffen was back from the dead.

And it was all my fault.

Well, at least, that's what the voices in my head told me. Griffen died of a heart attack after school my junior year, and I was the last one to see him. If I had stayed longer, I'd have been able to call an ambulance. My therapist says it wasn't my fault, that he might have died anyway, but come on. I could have at least been there to try and save him.

My resolve to change things grew. I didn't know how permanent this was or even if this was real, but it was real to me and I wasn't going to let him die.

Eventually, I toned back into the conversation Mr. Griffen was having with us as a class. He reiterated a couple of Fred's points and went further into details on exactly what we'd have to go through, along with details about our marching show. I grinned, thinking back onto my own memories. Tyranny of Time, it was called, was fast paced with a very slow jazzy center that ended with what I could only call an artful decent of madness. I could also appreciate the irony that it was time related.

I mean, come on, reader, it's worth a laugh. So, take this time to get in your chuckle. Ready? Go.

All right, shut up and stop laughing. Laughing that hard that's a little over the top. I mean, come on, my friends are all kids again, and one of my teachers is alive again now that it was the past again. You could at least take pity on m- DAMN IT QUIT LAUGHING!

Jerk. I have half a mind to not tell you anymore of my story. I mean, seriously.

Okay, okay, fine. Where was I again? Oh, right, Tyranny.

So, anyways, with the directors finished, they introduced the section instructors. The sax instructor was a pretty blonde girl what was short but I remembered her to feisty, demanding and seemed to have to ability to grow twelve feet when pissed at you for messing up towards the end of band camp when you should be kicking ass. Her name was Roxanne Sanders. She wasn't skinny, but she wasn't very large or anything. Rather average, really. She was a senior from another university that was close by but not the one I had been in. Roxanne wanted to go into music education when she graduated.

Two curly haired brunettes stood up and took the place Roxanne had. The band room was in a half circle like shape, with the band going down in a curved line. They put us at different elevations, five different steps. Right now, we were all scattered about hanging out with friends. I myself was sitting in a corner cross legged, with Yam on my lap. The walls were white with all sorts of musical notes and symbols scattered on the walls. A large markerboard was at the front of the room where the staff was all standing in a line. They all took turns in the middle when they spoke.

The brunettes were identical twins and I remembered that they were both a year away from a master's degree. One was aiming to be a nurse, the other one a history teacher, but they were both part of the university's band program. They were also rather pretty, a bit on the heavier side. But they wore identical clothing and only way to tell them apart was because Mila had long hair going almost to her hips whereas Miley had shoulder length hair. They both had obvious Native American heritage, as they were both dark skinned. Mila Anderson taught the flutes, while Miley taught the trumpets.

Eric Lambert was next. I had a few memories of him. He was twenty like I was. Eric was a communications major and a tuba player. He actually was a music tutor for kids that wanted to play brass instruments. The brass player was a very happy guy that wore clothes that told you otherwise. He enjoyed wearing the modern goth wear. You know, Marilyn Mason hoodie, spiked collar, and… dammit, what were they called? Bondage pants? You know, those things that had loads of chains and straps and pockets? Anyway, Eric was a funny guy that would occasionally work with the bari saxes like me. 

Oh! That reminds me! My high school band isn't like most. From what I know, most bands will have maybe one bari sax player during marching season and maybe two during concert season. My band usually juggled four or five. We tended to be a rather powerful wall of sound when we wanted to be and all of us had a special talent that we all did better than the other members of our section. One of us could play faster than the others, one could sight read better, one could memorize anything, one of us had the best volume control, and one of us could play just about any song he heard by ear.

I'll let ya know more about us as things go along and Freshman week ends, which doesn't look like anytime soon right now.

There's also the guard instructor. She's Griffen's oldest son's wife. I don't know much about her. She wasn't introduced to us, because the colorguard had already been practicing for a week, as had the drumline, so the percussion instructor was a mystery to me too. Finally, everything was done. Everyone in the room had been introduced and roll was called. I muttered a barely audible "Here" when called on. When it was all finished, Fred told us to grab our cases and gear and head outside.

Guess it was time to learn how to march.

Again.

FML.


End file.
